


The Devil and The Liar

by YourLocalPriestess



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Intrigue, Nyreen's backstory is a little...shifted??, Slow Burn, but these are still the badass ladies we know and love, introductions, some of the violence borders on graphic but it's about on par with game levels of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-08 04:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11639181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourLocalPriestess/pseuds/YourLocalPriestess
Summary: Nyreen came to Omega to get a fresh start, but her inability to ignore assholes throws her life into a whirlwind of change, causing the Queen of Omega enlist her into her ranks.





	1. The Devil Herself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Buggirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buggirl/gifts).



> This story was SO FUN to write. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Also, sorry for the length?? I swear this started as a one-shot, then just grew a plot on its own. It was out of my hands.

Nyreen made her way through the markets at a leisurely pace, taking time to pick up and sniff certain produce from where they sat in their stalls. She wasn’t sure how this particular market had survived so long here, if she was honest. In the months since her arrival on Omega, she’d seen plenty of markets come to life and die in the same day. Or rather, what passed as a ‘day’ here. The difference, she realized, as the batarian grunted at her and gripped his Predator tight while she eyed his Prelugia fruits, was that these people didn’t want peace. They wanted to make money. And that in itself had created its own odd peace.

She flicked a mandible in a smirk as she paid the man. “Nice to see your smiling face, Hiq.”

He grunted, counting her credits. “You’re good to go.”

“See you tomorrow then.” She grinned again and adjusted the strap on her bag as she continued down, taking a bite of the newly acquired fruit as she moved.

The fruit exploded in her finger tips as the air was ripped apart by gunfire. Nyreen dropped to the ground and threw herself under the nearest stall. People were screaming all around. Scatter-brained feet passed in front of her in a flash, running every which way. She stole a glance at Hiq’s stall and saw him slumped over the top, blood and brain matter covering the bright blue fruits.

All at once, her veins felt like they were on fire. She pulled her own sidearm out of her bag and checked the clip. She clutched it to her chest for a few shaky breaths. _Come on now, girl. You didn’t come here for easy._ She leaned out of cover and fired at the first merc she saw. Blue Suns filth. She spat in the dirt as the asari dropped. Nyreen fired again at the commando next to her and missed wildly, but it was enough to catch their attention. Unfortunately.

Out of the four remaining attackers, two trained their sights on her while the rest continued in their massacre. One lit up, a shimmery pale blue flickering all over her body and her fists as she stalked forward, with a friend in tow.

“Well, well, well.” She tsked and shook her head. “A do-gooder on Omega? Really? You one of Archangel’s crew?” She threw a singularity.

Nyreen tucked and rolled under another stall the one she had initially rolled under. When she settled, she leaned out and fired, careful of the aim and her limited bullets. The asari deflected the shot with a smirk. Nyreen cursed and ducked again.

“Whoever you are…” a nova shook through the ground, knocking Nyreen off balance. She fell to one knee in an attempt to steady herself while remaining out of firing range. The asari continued. “I don’t appreciate my squad getting fucked with.”

“Yeah?” Nyreen shouted, unable to stop herself. She peaked up over the edge, locking eyes with the bitch. “What about these shop owners? Think they like having their lives fucked with?” As she lifted her gun to shoot, a bullet clipped her shoulder. She hissed and leaned back down, gripping the wound with her free hand in attempt to staunch the blue stickiness oozing out.

The asari laughed. “Like I give a fuck about them?”

She sounded closer now. Nyreen could feel their combined footsteps vibrating the earth where she sat. She felt panic rise in her chest and took a few steadying breaths. _Focus. Breathe_. She blocked out the woman’s taunts and eyed her surroundings; two alleyways ahead, and one further than the other. Other than that is was just cement walls or going back the way she came.

“The only one stirring the shit right now is you,” the asari called. “So why don’t you come out and finish this, huh?”

Nyreen huffed and straightened. With a deep breath, she leaned out and let off rapid fire as she ran backward toward the nearest alleyway. “Fuck you!”

She glanced over her shoulder. _A few more steps_. She locked eyes with the asari and fired the last of her clip, then turned her back to sprint for it.

Searing pain lanced through her calf and she collapsed, only feet from the shadows. She screamed and gripped the limb. Tendons and bone shone bright blue and spilled their contents into the ground. She looked up at the asari and her partner, wide eyed and gritting her teeth. Funnily enough, the gunfire had stopped all around. Everyone else must already be dead or long gone.

The asari stopped five feet away from her, still smirking, and let her biotics flare and die. Her friend trained her gun on Nyreen while the bitch stalked forward, eventually crouching down until they were at eye level.

“Not bad. Definitely more exciting than my last run.” She lifted her hand to touch Nyreen’s cheek and she snapped at it.

“Don’t fucking touch me.”

The asari scowled. “Bitch.” She nudged the injured leg, causing Nyreen to scream and grip the limb with both hands. “Whatever. Party’s over, Telale. Finish her off.”

The other one, Telale, lined up her sights. Nyreen felt her mouth go dry, but kept it shut. She wouldn’t beg. Not now. Not if this was the end. She would die with some shred of dignity.

A roar ripped through the air. Telale lowered her gun, her purple face turning a shade lighter. She looked to her friend. “Is that–?”

“Shit,” the asari whispered.

Gunfire ripped through the air again. Telale leaned around a stall, gun raised, and promptly slumped to the ground, a new hole in the center of her eyes.

“Fuck!” the asari screamed, lighting up again in a flare that made Nyreen wince. She could only watch as the asari stood and waited for whoever the new attacker was to round the corner.

“Really, Nesini?” a woman called out, the voice unnervingly calm.

“Listen, I don’t want trouble.” The asari, Nesini, apparently, was shaking as much as her voice had, all the bravado of moments ago lost.

Another woman rounded the corner; an asari, sheathed in biotic, flickering blue, whose face twisted in rage as she caught sight of Nesini.

“Please, I’ll do anything,” Nesini begged, though she raised her fists high, cowering behind them.

The woman charged with a snarl. Nyreen heard the telltale sound of bones cracking beneath the force of the landing. Nesini staggered backwards, tripping over Nyreen’s prone legs and making her shout. Nesini gripped her stomach where she fell, not bothering to attempt to right herself.

“You broke my ribs!” she screeched.

The woman rolled her eyes. If Nyreen didn’t know better, she’d say she almost looked bored. “Shut the fuck up.” She turned to Nyreen. Up close, Nyreen could see deep purple, circular tattoos adorned her face, with one intersecting the center of her bottom lip. All of the lines highlighted her best features and, honestly, added a bit of menace. “Who are you?”

Nyreen pressed her mouth plates together for a moment. “No one.”

The woman scoffed. “Yeah. You and everyone else.” She turned back to Nesini, who had begun to slowly scoot backward, and shot her foot. “I’m not done with you.”

Nesini screamed and began hyperventilating, stuck between cradling her ribs and foot, looking anywhere but at the woman in front of her. “Please,” she sobbed. “I’ll tell you everything. Anything you want to know.”

The woman leaned down and gripped Nesini by the throat. “You’re goddamn right you will.”

Nyreen could see Nesini swallow beneath the grip while she nodded. The woman answered her by shoving her back to the ground and stowing her gun. She turned to walk back to the corner she’d rounded. “Bex! Ufen! I have two that are coming with us.”

While she stood a few feet away, back turned, Nyreen saw Nesini dig into her belt from the corner of her eye. A small white pistol emerged in Nesini’s grip. She raised a shaky hand and aimed it at the woman.

Nyreen lunged. The shot went wide and Nesini screamed as Nyreen’s body collided against her shattered ribs. White hot pain lanced up her leg and through her spine from jostling the injury, but she ignored it and hedged her elbow further into the asari’s chest. Nesini cried out and dropped the gun. Nyreen snatched it up and straddled her, pinning her so she stopped her goddamn squirming, even as her eyes filled with spots of black from the pain. She pressed the gun to the woman’s forehead and fired.

Nyreen was frozen there for a moment, panting, gun pressed against the still figure beneath her, even as the pain in her calf grew more insistent. Eventually, she wasn’t honestly sure how long, she slumped down and off the body onto her good leg. Mechanically, she turned to the woman a few yards away.

The woman herself looked somewhere between pissed and surprised. The two mercs with her, a batarian and a krogan (at least, they looked like mercs), stared at her, unblinking. The woman eventually stepped forward, the same strange look twisting her face.

“You shot her.”

“She was going to shoot you.” Nyreen dropped the gun and tossed it at her feet. “With your back still turned.”

The woman let out a single surprised chuckle. “I’ll be damned.” She shot a look over her shoulder. “This one’s an honorable merc.”

“I’m not a merc,” Nyreen spat, glaring. She didn’t know who the fuck this asari was, but she wasn’t fond of the idea of _anyone_ associating her with such trash.

The woman raised one, condescending eyebrow, a smirk quirking her lips. “Oh, yeah? So you’re just an innocent bystander in this fiasco?”

Nyreen huffed. “Yes.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, then cackled. She turned to her men, a feral grin on her face. “This one’s not bad. Bring her in for questioning. Careful of the wounds. I don’t want her passing out from pain before we get there.”


	2. And All Her Merry Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: VERY brief torture scene, non-graphic.

Nyreen woke up on her knees in a small, dark room, her arms chained to opposite walls, leaving her body fully exposed. She coughed once and looked down at herself, even though it was almost too dark to see. _Not naked. Thank the spirits_. As she blinked up into the darkness, she remembered being awake before, in a very different setting with people around her shouting about blood loss and other medical jargon. Whatever the hell had happened then, she must have been well enough to be here now. She squinted at her shoulder. She couldn’t see the wound, but she felt an ache and a dull pressure that could only be a bandage of some sort. _Awful lot of effort to clean me up just to throw me in here._

She sighed and tugged at her chains lightly, testing their worth.

All at once, the light came on, swathing the room in yellowish green. She winced and looked at the floor. The sound of the door ahead of her opening and closing made her snap her head up.

A batarian stood before her, metal rod in hand, bouncing it against his palm and smirking at her.

“What do you want?” He didn’t answer, just took slow steps closer. “Why am I here?”

He stuck the rod into the apex of her neck and shoulder. Electricity filled her senses. She screamed and thrashed against the chains. It was only for a moment, but when he released, she sagged toward the floor.

“Why did the Blue Suns attack the market?” he groused.

Nyreen turned her head to look at him with one eye. “What?”

He struck her with the rod again, this time in the ribs and a few seconds longer.

“Why did the Blue Suns attack the market?” he asked again, voice unchanged.

“I don’t know!” she shouted, panting and staring at the floor. She lifted her head to him and winced from the effort. “I’m not a fucking merc.”

“Then who are you?”

She shook her head. “No one.”

His lip curled and the rod struck her in the shoulder, in her still bandaged wound, and she screeched louder still.

“What’s your name?”

“Talesh Hutara!” she screamed, a sob ripping out of her chest.

“Who are you affiliated with?”

“No one!”

The rod found her injured calf this time. The pain was so intense that her mouth hung open in a silent scream, long after he released her.

“Why are you here?”

“To start,” she panted, “over.” Silence passed between them both for a few blessed moments, and Nyreen gathered her strength to look up into his eyes. “Please. I don’t have whatever information you’re looking for. Please let me go.”

The batarian blinked all six of his eyes at her, then left, as quickly as he’d come, swathing her in darkness once more.

Nyreen could feel her wounds bleeding. Her mouth was dry from the screaming and panting, but no matter how much she wanted to, she didn’t call out. She hung her head and tried for sleep, but it didn’t come: only restless, panicked fever spells filled her.

_What do they know?_

The door opened with a slam some time later. A new batarian and a human stood there. The human moved forward and unlocked her wrists, quickly replacing the binding by locking them in omni-cuffs behind her back. He pulled her to her feet, surprisingly careful of her leg, and guided her out the door.

“Where are you taking me?” Her voice was all wrong, ragged and dried out as it felt. They both ignored her and kept moving.

They made their way up a flight of stairs that felt like a whole new kind of torture on her calf. She sucked her mandibles tight to her face to keep from crying out as they kept climbing up, up, up.

When they reached the top, the door opened to more noise and light than Nyreen had seen in days. Ahead of her, the unlikely hero from the market sat on a lavish red couch, sipping a blue drink. She was looking to her right, out over the chaotic noise below. _Afterlife_ , Nyreen noted as the two men walked her down toward the woman. She wore a black bodysuit with geometric holes cut out in strategic places paired with a deep red leather jacket. When they reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the seating area, the woman finally looked up and gave a nod to the two men. Immediately, Nyreen’s hands were freed from the cuffs. She rubbed circles around her wrists and narrowed her eyes at the woman.

“Sit,” she instructed. Nyreen obeyed, if only because of the four to six armed guards all around them, all watching her every move. “What would you like to drink?”

“Some water would be nice,” Nyreen stated, trying desperately to keep any and all emotion from her voice.

The woman waved at someone behind Nyreen, then returned her blank gaze to her face. “Do you know who I am?”

“I could wager a guess,” Nyreen sighed, still massaging her wrists.

The woman smirked and took a sip from her glass, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Humor me.”

Nyreen fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Given the amount of armed guards and our location: Aria T’Loak.”

The woman grinned. “So you are smart.”

Nyreen swallowed. “It’s not hard to figure out when your name is the only one that matters on this rock.”

Aria’s lip curled in a feral half smile. “You flatter me.”

A scantily clad asari waitress appeared and gave Nyreen her glass. She gulped at it, forgetting for a moment that she was sitting next to the most dangerous woman on the station.

“So.” Nyreen took her last gulp and set the glass down on the table. “Why stop torturing me?”

Aria chuckled and gave her an appraising look. “Right to the point aren’t you.”

Nyreen did roll her eyes then as she leaned back in her seat. “You’re not exactly known for mercy. What’s your angle?”

Aria sipped her drink again, smile gone, and set it down. “I’d like to know who you are, and what you’re doing on my station. And think hard about the consequences before you tell me the same lies you told Gurg, _Talesh_.” The scattered and mobile lights of the club below cast strange shadows on Aria’s face, making her eyes look hard as glass.

Nyreen took a steadying breath and observed the woman, trying to calculate her chances. Her options. “By now you know that I am not Blue Suns, nor any other kind of merc. I’m willing to bet that you have no idea who I am at all.” She leaned forward. “So you’re going to have to trust me. My name is Talesh Hutara, and I came here to start over.”

Aria scoffed. “And I’m sure you understand when I tell you that trust is a commodity on Omega, _Talesh_ , especially for me.” She leaned forward on her knees and clasped her hands over them, turning her head in a curious way. “No one comes to Omega to ‘start over.’ What are you running from?”

Nyreen stiffened and pursed her mouth plates. “Nothing,” she lied. “Why would you assume that?”

“Because,” Aria huffed, annoyed, and leaned back again, pulling her drink in tow, “if you bring shit onto my station, I need to know about it.”

“No one’s coming for me.” Nyreen hoped her voice didn’t sound as hollow as she felt saying it, because she hadn’t said _it_ yet. Not out loud. Not even to herself. But there it was, at the Queen of Omega’s feet. A truth amidst the lies.

Aria fell silent. Silence was a funny thing in Afterlife. The bass thumped through the seat and filled her senses. The lights were disorienting and intense, making it hard to see anything clearly for more than a few moments. But sitting there on that couch, frozen in the Queen of Omega’s gaze, silence was harrowing. Had she said too much? Revealed too little? She fought to keep her face still and hold the gaze without flinching away.

“The way I see it, Talesh, is we have two options.” Aria glanced down at the floor below and back to her, swinging up one foot so it rested on her knee. “I can release you in your weakened state back into the world of Omega, where you now have a bounty on your head.”

Nyreen shifted her jaw. “And the other option?”

“You can work for me, at least until you’re healed. You have the benefit of my protection, I have the benefit of catching you in your lies.”

She didn’t cringe when the accusation hit the air. “It seems there isn’t much choice in the matter.”

Aria shrugged one shoulder. “There’s always choices. They may not be ideal, in either respect, but they’re the choices nonetheless.”

“Well,” Nyreen sighed. She looked behind Aria at the waitress who remained in the background and pointed to her drink. She filled it quickly. When she finished and scurried away, Nyreen picked it up and crossed her legs before regarding the woman again. “What would you have me do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cue dramatic music* *evil author eyebrow waggle*


	3. Lies, Lies, Lies

Working with Aria turned into something even more strange than Nyreen had anticipated. It was hard not to listen to the rumors that circled Omega’s alleyways when she lived as a ‘normal’ citizen. _Ruthless. Calculating. Cold. Ancient. Immortal._ Immoral _. Killer. Ruler._ There really was only one true law on Omega: Don’t fuck with Aria.

When Nyreen had chosen to work for her, “Until my wounds are fully healed. That’s the deal. Then I can leave,” Aria shrugged and gave her word, whatever that could be worth. Nyreen could survive that. Whatever fucked up shit Aria might have her do, she _would_ survive that. Surviving was something she excelled in.

She _did_ _not_ expect to actually like the work. But as the weeks rolled into months, Nyreen’s wounds were long-healed, and still she stayed.

In the tense starting weeks, Aria mostly had her train with her guards in the mornings and evenings and assist in guard shifts at Afterlife. It was an intimidation tactic, plain as any. _Here’s what my men can do. Don’t do anything stupid_. If she was meant to give a reaction, bout out some profound confession of truth, she gave her no such satisfaction. A fact that only seemed to grate against Aria further as those first few weeks passed with ease, without Nyreen so much as questioning an order.

It wasn’t until Ufen got into a bad scape with a particularly nasty group of rabble rousers outside Afterlife that Aria warmed to her. The krogan came limping in, causing a scene in his appearance to the point that the music stopped and the dancing stilled in most of the club. Nyreen could picture perfectly the hard flash of anger on Aria’s face as her skin turned a fairer shade of purple. Her head had turned from the scene and snapped her way, but before she could bark out a command, Nyreen was already sprinting down the stairs until she was supporting the krogan under one meaty arm.

“What did they hit?” Nyreen hissed through gritted teeth as they limped up the stairs. Even as others joined them to help, it was slow work, and the krogan weighed a literal fuck ton.

“One of my hearts,” he grumbled out, a krogan curse passing through his teeth as they took another step, “primary nervous system. New tech shit. Can’t–” he roared and knocked a man that accidentally touched a wound into a wall, “–not regenerating properly.”

They reached the top platform and lowered him on a cot someone had brought. Nyreen gave his wounds a cursory glance. “Someone hold him down.” Multiple people flew to each limb. She looked him in the eyes. “This isn’t going to feel good. Try not to kill them.”

He swore again, but she didn’t give him the opportunity to respond. She could feel Aria’s gaze at the back of her neck. Her face felt hotter than before, but she ignored it. She picked the hole that gaped the widest, which really should have closed on its own by now, and lowered her fingers inside. Ufen howled and struggled against his restraints briefly before stilling to a tremble.

“Move fast,” he growled.

She ignored him and continued at her pace. If this was what she thought it was, dexterity would win out over stealth or force.

“Got it,” she whispered, mostly to herself. She pinched the tech between her thumb and forefinger. Aria appeared at her elbow – she could practically feel the woman’s breath on her neck. “This going to hurt,” she told Ufen, nodding at the unfortunate guards restraining him.

She used her other arm as leverage to ensure she lifted at an even pace. With a deep breath, she began to pull.

The head of the device emerged first, bringing with it a new and more vicious roar from the krogan, though to his credit, he only squirmed for a moment; more of an involuntary twitch than anything. The next things to emerge were the microscopic tentacles of tech, elongating as it tried to keep its grip on the krogan’s flesh.

“Someone get me something to put this thing in,” she hissed at no one in particular. “Once it lets go, it can’t touch anyone else.”

Aria snapped her fingers and there was a shuffle of feet. “Alright.” Her voice came from her nine, completely calm. Almost a comfort.

Nyreen blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and pulled it the rest of the way. The tentacles released and flailed in the air at the loss. Blood spurted out of Ufen for a moment, but even in the seconds since the release, his regenerative cells went to work and the blood stopped. Nyreen held the tech at arm’s length and didn’t tear her eyes off of it.

“Where’s the case?” she half shouted, panic leaking into her voice.

Aria smacked her hand and the device hit the steel floor with a _clink_. It began to scurry away by its tentacles when Aria pulled her Predator and blasted it, leaving only a smolder of black behind.

Nyreen’s jaw dropped and her head snapped up to the asari. Her mandibles fluttered, an undisguisable display of the anger filling her veins. “What the fuck, Aria?”

“It was too dangerous to keep, even by my standards.” She holstered her gun and eyed the dust, as if making sure nothing remained.

Nyreen let out a turian curse and hissed in a breath, clenching her fist. “It’s new technology, which hurts our people. And now we’ll never know more about it!”

“You knew it.” Aria placed one hand on her hip and regarded her fully, as if she was only now seeing her. Nyreen felt suddenly naked under the scrutiny. “How?”

“Military school,” she replied, not missing a beat. “It was only developmental tech, rumored to exist on the black market. It’s the only thing that could do something like that.” It was only a half lie, really. Mostly. But it was another lie to add to her ever growing pile, which seem to be exponential with the amount of time she spent at Aria’s command.

The asari pursed her lips for a moment and narrowed her eyes. Nyreen heard the phrase once of stares making humans sweat. She didn’t have the capacity for such a reaction, but her plates tensed and scraped against each other unpleasantly, poised for whatever attack Aria was articulating.

“You saved his life.” She looked at the krogan. He’d fallen asleep on the cot, his wound already half healed and breathing finally returned to normal. “For that I’m grateful.” She glanced at her and raised one eyebrow. “Look into this shit. I want to know everything there is to know about it.”

           

Just like that, Nyreen wasn’t an outsider. Aria’s assignment bought Nyreen enough time to “research” before disclosing her knowledge of the technology without giving away any unwarranted hints about her past. “Basically, it keeps you from healing, from medigel or otherwise, and makes you bleed out faster.” It gave Aria an edge, as more and more of the new tech emerged in the hands of merc groups and general trouble makers of Omega. Nyreen (still ‘Talesh’ to them) was the first responder to injuries involving the tech. She took on an asari apprentice to teach her the proper way to remove and contain the tech (Aria’s grab-and-smash method was not adopted in practice) and before long, Nyreen was given command of her own squad to further investigate the source of the tech and who the fuck was handing it out like candy to anyone with a gun and a chip on their shoulder.

Nearly a year passed this way. It never stopped surprising Nyreen that she _didn’t_ hate Aria, or working for her. Time pulled her further into Aria’s inner circle – a place of danger or safety, by any definition, with no room for any middle ground. Nyreen knew it wasn’t wise to keep allowing the charade of Talesh to continue, that every day she lied put more nails into her metaphorical coffin. She’d vanished once, disappeared and been presumed dead. She _should_ do the same here. She should.

But something kept her around. Something that _definitely_ had nothing to do with the Queen of Omega, who actually wasn’t cold to her core, but someone who looked after her own, and damn the rest. Who was actually brilliant and fair and ruled the way she did because it was necessary on this fucked up rock. No, it had nothing to do with the strange warmth that pooled in Nyreen’s stomach when Aria smiled at her, on the rare occasion that she did. _Nothing_ to do with any of that.

“You okay, Talesh?” her apprentice, Matri, asked as they approached the back entrance to Afterlife.

Nyreen shook her head and smirked at the girl. She was young by asari standards, barely fifty. “I’m good. Just need some R&R.”

Matri grinned. “Don’t we all?”

Nyreen looked ahead. Aria was approaching from the opposite direction. They’d split their teams earlier with they got a tip about a location for a manufacturer of the antigel, as they’d come to calling it.

“How many this time, Talesh? And be honest,” Aria called as they approached, a smirk on her face.

Matri giggled and Nyreen fought the urge to flutter her mandibles. “More than you, that I can guarantee.” She grinned. “Solid twenty, all by my lonesome.”

“Bullshit,” Aria scoffed, though she was grinning. “Not possible.”

“Whatever you say, your majesty,” Nyreen shrugged, barely holding back her laugh.

Aria rolled her eyes. So far, no one else had been able to get away with calling her that. Except Nyreen, a fact that had not escaped her. She holstered her pistol as their groups converged at the door.

Aria placed a hand on her cheek and slapped it lightly. “Mouthy bitch.”

Just as the door began to open, an explosion rang out above their heads. Nyreen looked up to see chunks of metal and rock careening toward them. Before she had a chance to move, an arm at her waist pulled her to ground and out of the way. Her head slammed into the ground and she coughed through the dust and shock of contact as she gasped in a breath. Gunfire ripped through the air next, followed by shouts and screams of pain from all directions. Nyreen tried to sit up, tried to breathe, but there was too much dust in the air and the arm was pulling her behind cover.

She looked up when the arm released her, finally, to find Aria glaring at her gun as she slapped a heat sink in place.

“What–”

“Stay the fuck down,” Aria barked. She leaned out from behind the crate and fired three times, followed by three bodily thuds, before she leaned back again.

Nyreen swallowed and pulled herself into a sitting position. She pulled out her gun and scanned the entrance to Afterlife. It was effectively blocked by the rubble, and there were no bodies beneath it. She pursed her lips. Aria was right; it didn’t matter what the fuck was going on. They were being attacked and that was the only thing that mattered.

“Enough!”

Nyreen’s blood went cold as the woman’s dual toned voice echoed over the racket. The word brought a ceasefire from their attackers. Aria held up a hand to their own people as a result. The stillness stole Nyreen’s breath.

“Can’t we be civilized about this?” the woman called over to them.

Aria snarled, even if Nyreen was the only one who heard it. “I tend not to be civilized when someone fucking shoots at me.”

“Fair enough. I’m willing to stop this senseless violence if we can come to agreement.”

“Fat chance,” Aria scoffed.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

The silence that stretched out was enough to make weaker beings weep.

“Nyreen,” the woman called out. “Come with me and everyone can go.”

She swallowed and gripped her pistol tighter. There was no way this was happening. She’d covered her tracks. She’d been so careful. This wasn’t –

“We outnumber you ten to one and I will not hesitate to slaughter every single one of your little friends, darling.”

Aria huffed through her nose. She was bouncing on her heels, her fingers twitchy over their grip on her Predator. “Who the fuck are you talking to? There’s no Nyreen here, you stupid bitch.”

“I’ll give you to the count of ten,” the woman announced, ignoring Aria entirely. “Ten.”

Matri was gripping her side in her cover across from them, pain twisting up her face.

“Nine.”

Panting, ragged breaths echoed through the back alley.

“Eight.”

“Fuck this,” Aria hissed under her breath.

“Seven.”

“Wait!” Nyreen shouted, gripping Aria’s arm, stopping her from leaning out to fire. Aria turned on her, a wild look in her eye. “I’m sorry,” Nyreen whispered. Louder, she said, “Let them all walk out of this first, then I come out. I have nowhere else to go, as I’m sure you’re aware. Just don’t hurt them.” She looked at the furious asari who hadn’t stopped glaring at her. “Including Aria.”

“There she is.” The woman laughed. “Yes, that’s fine. You heard your girl. Drop your weapons and leave.”

There was no movement for a solid five seconds. Aria wouldn’t stop glaring, but Nyreen refused to back down. She left her hand on the woman’s arm and didn’t blink.

“You heard, Nyreen,” Aria shouted, yanking her arm out of her grip. The venom in her voice sent ice through her spine. “Lay down your weapons and walk out.”

Slowly, the teams began to put their weapons on the ground and come out of cover with their arms raised. None of them looked her way, but all of them glanced at Aria. That was somehow worse than being caught, that fact, that abandonment. In a blink, she’d lost every person she cared about.

Soon enough, it was only Matri, Aria, and Nyreen left. They rose all together, hands held high, except one of Matri’s, which still gripped her side. Her legs were drenched in a deep crimson that continued to spill between her fingers. _The medigel should’ve kicked in by now_. As Matri locked eyes with hers, realization smacked Nyreen in the face.

Matri wasn’t going to stop bleeding.

Before she could say anything, do anything, Matri lead them forward, with Aria behind her and Nyreen taking up the rear. Her boot scuffed a bloody footprint. She nearly buckled over from the wave of nausea that followed. She swallowed her bile and raised her eyes ahead.

Rimeria stood out as stark as she always had, surrounded by her band of hired hands. Every gun was pointed on the three of them as they made their way slowly forward, but the way Rime’s eyes locked onto her every move felt far more deadly. Her bright green clan markings crossed and highlighted her face in sharp, chaotic lines, making her yellow eyes almost glow in their contrast. Even now, in this standoff that fulfilled every promise that Rime made, she grinned and rested a hand on one hip.

“Nyreen, you look positively beautiful,” she purred, her voice flanging with a bitter edge. “I’m so glad we could reunite.”

Nyreen had been so focused on trying to analyze any means of escape that she hadn’t noticed how close to the troop Matri had gotten, how close to Rime.

She opened her mouth to shout too late.

Matri lunged for the woman, clutching a dagger in her bloodied hand. Her movement’s bought just enough time for Rime to turn and take a slash to the face, followed by a deafening shriek. Every gun turned and fired.

“No!” Nyreen made to run, but Aria’s grip around her waist yanked her back.

Aria scooped up two pistols that had been dropped and shoved one into her slack hand. Nyreen couldn’t tear her eyes off the blue figure on the ground. Aria gripped her face and turned it toward her own. “We have to move!”

That was enough to draw their attention. A shot wedged into Aria’s shoulder. She let out a string of curses and pulled them both back behind a wall.

“You better get us the fuck out of this,” she hissed as she looked at her shoulder.

Rime tsked, over-shadowing Aria’s words. “You never make the simple choices, do you, dear?”

Aria growled and leaned out throw a singularity, then ducked again as a fresh spasm of bullets began. “Who the fuck is this bitch?”

“Long story.”

Aria huffed. “Great. You’re gonna tell me all about it after you _get us the fuck out of here_.”

Nyreen looked around the small area they were now inhabiting. It was no bigger than a custodial closet, with walls at all sides except for the area where there happened to be a constant rabble of gunfire. She fired up her tool and scanned the walls. On their wall was a thicker panel that registered as almost nothing on the scanner. She frowned and leaned down, fingering along the edges of it.

“What are you doing?” Aria asked, her voice as close to a whisper as it could be with all the sound. She leaned out to fire. This time someone shouted and thumped to the ground.

“Getting us out of here,” she muttered. “Keep them busy.”

The volley of gunshots continued. Nyreen wasn’t sure why Rime wasn’t having them charge and slaughter them where they stood, but whatever her fucked up reasons, it bought her time. She dislodged the panel and breathed a sigh of relief. The top of a ladder visible through the opening.

“This little game of back and forth has been fun, dear, but I’m getting _bored_ ,” Rime sighed, her voice carrying over the shots.

“Shoot at her again, enough to piss her off,” Nyreen whispered.

Aria nodded, a smirk that didn’t reach her eyes quirking her lips, and at the next break of reload, fired at them again. Rime hissed and snarled out a turian curse. The bullets increased tenfold after, causing Aria to shrink further back, away from where the spray was beginning to break apart the wall itself.

“Get in,” Nyreen said, gesturing wildly. Aria holstered the pistol and threw herself down, gripping the ladder with only one arm and tensing her opposite shoulder. Nyreen followed and quickly reattached the panel as if it had never moved at all. As she did, she placed a cloaking tab on its center. With luck, that could buy them enough time.

Her feet hit the floor below as the sound of gunfire ended. Someone was shouting above their heads, though the words were obscured by the sound of stomping feet. _Good. Panic, bitch_. She turned to Aria while also taking in their new terrain. They were in what appeared to be maintenance tunnels, though they were unlike the others she’d entered before on the previous runs. The tunnel was too large, like an entire road underbelly of the beast above.

Aria was leaning against one wall, gripping her shoulder and assessing the blood on her fingers that wouldn’t stop pulsing out. She looked up at Nyreen. “The medigel isn’t working.”

Nyreen swallowed. “Come on.”

She wrapped an arm around the asari’s waist and together they ran the length of the tunnel, down passage after passage, taking as many turns as possible. Just in case. After fifteen minutes, Nyreen spotted an empty storage room that was mostly concealed from the main tunnel.

“Here.”

They made their way in, Nyreen carrying most of Aria’s weight by then, until she could set her down against a wall. After she did, she immediately returned to the door, her fingers flying over her omnitool, until its lock shone a deep red.

“This is Aria T’Loak.” Nyreen whipped her head around. Despite the slight sheen of sweat on the woman’s brow, he voice was steady as she spoke into her tool; broadcasting across the station as Nyreen had seen her do only two times before. “You home has been attacked, as has your leader. Lock down all ports. Seal Afterlife. No one leaves this station without my direct approval.” She turned off the broadcast and switched the line. “This is Aria. If any of you see that worthless bitch, capture her _alive_ , by whatever means necessary. Await further instructions.” She killed that line as well and let her hand drop to the floor with a _thud_.

Nyreen stood there for a moment, shifting from foot to foot. She wasn’t sure exactly how to proceed. She needed to remove the antigel out of her arm. She needed to apologize. Again. She needed to fix this. She needed –

“Are you going to save my life or what?” The Queen of Omega’s voice was back to the usual bored drawl, if slightly weaker.

Nyreen made her way over soundlessly and began to pull at the ragged hole in her jacket. “You’ll have to take this off,” she said finally.

Aria sighed. “This one was my favorite.” She shrugged out of it on her good arm and let Nyreen help her ease it over her shoulder on the other.

“I’ll get you a new one,” she said, placing the jacket in the woman’s lap and returning her fingers to the edge of the hole. “Okay,” she sighed. “You’ll need to hold onto that and not scream.”

Aria frowned, her entire face curling in with the expression, and kept her eyes on her as she stuffed the ruined red leather into her mouth.

Nyreen nodded and began moving a single finger into the hole. She felt the muscles in the woman’s shoulder clench while her body twitched. A muffled cry was swallowed by the jacket. She tried to ignore the woman’s movement and let her finger move deeper inside. When it finally touched the antigel, her finger was half buried in the wound. “I’ve got it.” Aria nodded frantically, gripping the jacket in her mouth until her knuckles turned a pale violet. Nyreen hooked her finger underneath the device and began pulling as quickly as she dared, not tearing her eyes off of it as tendril after tendril released itself from the wound.

When it was finally freed, she dropped it to the floor and smashed it with the butt of her pistol. A shuttering breath left Aria’s lips as she dropped the jacket and let her head fall back against the wall. Nyreen reached into her pack and took out a pack of medigel.

“That’s some nasty shit,” Aria grumbled, eyes closed.

“Yeah,” Nyreen sighed. She massaged the gel into the hole and the surrounding area. Immediately, the swelling and deep purple bruising reduced. She emptied the pack and stood up. “You should only need an hour to recover.” She walked over to the door and gave it a quick scan. “We should be safe here until we need to leave.”

Aria chuckled once, a humorless sound that caused Nyreen to turn around, hand still hovering over her tool as she regarded the injured woman on the floor.

“You just gonna try and shrug this one off?” she asked.

Nyreen pursed her lips and looked back at her tool, away from that piercing look. “No.”

“‘ _Nyreen_ ’.” Aria laughed again, a soft sound that left Nyreen cold as it fell over her. “Who the _fuck_ are you?”

Nyreen’s tongue darted over her plates. She let her tool vanish and turned to face the woman full on. “Do we have to do this now? Can’t it wait?”

Aria scoffed. “I don’t see why we should, since one of my most trusted employees is a fucking _liar_ and we’ve got time to kill.”

The venom in her voice was like a slap in the face. “ _Liar_? You didn’t give me a choice. I didn’t come to Omega looking for any of this. You tortured me after I almost died! Why would I tell you the truth?”

“Why wouldn’t you tell the truth in the first place, unless there was something particularly nasty to hide?” she fired back.

Nyreen wanted to say something clever in return, continue this back and forth that left her past where it belonged. But Matri was dead and Aria was hurt, because the past didn’t give a shit where she wanted it to stay. Because Nyreen hadn’t trusted them.

“It’s more than just–” She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment before looking at her again. “It’s not just some horrible thing I did. This is personal.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s–” She swallowed the bile in her throat. “We used to be together.”

Aria frowned. “What?”

“It was on Palavan.” She scratched behind one of her mandibles as she tried to find the courage to be honest. “We were on the same assignment, a research team. Rimeria and I were the lead engineers in testing theories on new tech.”

“You’re not making sense,” Aria groused, gifting her with an annoyed huff. “Who is she and why did she come here?”

“She’s a woman I used to see, when we were researching theories on tech that the Hierarchy sent our way. I broke things off when I learned that she was taking our tests and developing the techno her own, and testing it on live subjects.”

Aria straightened from her position and leaned forward slightly, her eyes coming alive with a new fire. “What tech?”

Nyreen swallowed and took a deep breath. “Antigel.”

“Goddammit!” Aria slammed her fist into a crate.

“Keep your voice down!” she hissed. She rushed over and grabbed the woman’s fist while covering her mouth with her other hand.

Aria surged forward and head butted her. Nyreen blinked from the shock and fell back on her ass. “Fuck you,” Aria spat. She shoved herself up with both arms until she was towering over top of her. Nyreen scrabbled to follow suit. Once on her feet she began backing away from the woman who was sparking blue all over.

“You brought this–this _plague_ into my home. My people have died.” Her skin erupted in rippling blue as she clenched her fists.

Nyreen held up both hands. “Aria…”

“Don’t.” The asari moved forward in one swift motion and slammed Nyreen’s head against the wall, hand around her throat.

Nyreen clawed at the woman’s hand, leaving bloody scratches in her wake. “Not…my…fault,” she gasped out.

Aria’s lips curled. She tightened her hand, cutting off her air entirely. “The fuck it’s not.”

Nyreen raised her leg and kicked her in the stomach. Aria barreled backward, slamming into the opposite wall of the small, square room. Nyreen gasped and cupped her throat while Aria was still off balance. When she looked up, the woman looked somehow even more furious than before. Nyreen watched as her muscles rippled and tensed; she raised her fist.

“Wait!” Nyreen held up both of her hands, palm up. “Aria, wait.”

“Why should I?” the woman shouted, an edge of something beyond fury in her words, something shattered and raw.

“Because it would have happened anyway!”

Silence stretched out in the small space, only broken by the sound of their panting breaths.

“You have no way of knowing that,” Aria said, still flickering blue all over.

“You’re right,” she said, voice hoarse at it adjusted to the air. “But it’s not a far stretch. She was in the advanced stages of testing when I found out. I found plans for testing it in real time. I didn’t want any part of that, or her, or anything else in the program. That’s when I left. That’s when I came here.”

“So she came here for _you_.”

Nyreen shook her head frantically. “You don’t understand. When I left, it wasn’t a job you just _quit_. I was dead; for all intents and purposes. Dead to Palavan and dead to Rime. I came here as Talesh. I was done with that life, forever.”

Aria sneered but let her biotics flicker out. “Then how did she find you?”

She shrugged, unable to think of much else. “I think it’s because your people weren’t dying. It wasn’t exactly a secret that you had a way to cure the antigel. I’m the only one who saw what Rime was doing, who worked on the project and left. It’s not hard to piece together.”

Another silence stretched out, heady and toxic, making it hard to breathe. Nyreen fingered at the color of her shirt, at the soreness that still lined her throat.

“You never told me.” Aria closed her eyes and lowered herself into a corner. “You should have told me.”

“I know.”

“People are dead.”

“I know.”

“Because of _your_ incompetence.”

“I _know_.” Her voice came out twisted and too loud, flanging in all the wrong places. “You think I wanted Matri to die? You think I wanted you hurt? That I wanted any of this?”

Aria stayed queit. Nyreen pressed on.

“Rime is capable of this because of me. I couldn’t just– There was no way to stop her. And I didn’t– I couldn’t–” Her voice cut off, choked out by the memory of her own cowardice. “I ran. And maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I could have done more. I _should_ have done more. But I didn’t. And now we’re here.”

A dark chuckle, jagged and rough, passed from Aria’s lips. “Now we’re here.”

“I’m sorry.” Nyreen leaned against her wall and stared at the floor. “I should have told you.”

“You should have.”

Her mandibles trembled against her will. She twisted her fingers into a fist to hide the shaking. “I should have just fucking left,” she breathed.

The flash of color as Aria turned her head made Nyreen glance her way. Stuck in this shadowed, hidden place with all Nyreen’s failures and cowardice laying at her feet, the asari was more devastating than ever. Even with more of her skin exposed than Nyreen had ever seen, she felt far more naked. Alone. Almost cold. Aria’s purple eyes always had a way of captivating whoever held their gaze, whether out of fear or admiration; none were safe. As those eyes bored into her own, Nyreen wasn’t sure which one held true for her now.

“People died because of you.” Aria’s voice was hard and crystal clear. It sucked the wind out of Nyreen’s chest. “But more would have died without you.”

A strangled sob crawled out of her chest. She let her body slide down the wall until she was sitting, and buried her face in her hands.

“I’m still furious. But a spade is a spade, as humans say. I’m grateful we had you.”

Nyreen looked up, but the Queen of Omega was face her corner, eyes closed. Nyreen could take the hint. There had already been enough honesty to last her a lifetime.

A quick glance at her tool told her they had forty minutes left until they were reasonably in the clear. She set an alarm, sighed, and leaned her head against the wall. Maybe in the silence, sleep would take her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This was the chapter that drug me through the mud. They had a million different confrontations to start, but this one ended up being the most organic. And this became far and away the LONGEST chapter, so, sorry for that haha.
> 
> Onward!


	4. Bang, Bang, Bitch

A nudge to her shoulder woke Nyreen with a start. Aria was crouched in front of her, the familiar hard look returned to her eyes.

“They found your girl. She’s holed up with her men in an abandoned house. Right now they’re telling me there’s only one entrance, which is a bridge that she has barricaded.”

Nyreen straightened, and rubbed her eyes. “Wait, there’s no other way in?”

“Not according to them.” Aria smirked. “I think there might be.” She rose and held out her hand to her.

Nyreen gripped it tight and hoisted herself up. “Show me.”

           

They moved through the tunnels in silence. The building that Rime had holed up in was well fortified, but she hadn’t accounted for the underground entrance. She didn’t even know that it existed, so far as Aria or her people could tell. “My men are going to lobby an attack when we reach the doors. If there’s anyone there, they’ll be distracted long enough for us to get in.”

“We’re going in just the two of us?”

“There’s only ten people there, maybe less. We don’t have time to wait for reinforcements.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to. And I have a feeling you might want to kill this bitch yourself.”

So Nyreen bit her tongue as they made their way out, searching crates and barrels for heat sinks along the way. Aria’s words niggled at her. Did she want to kill Rime? Did they have a choice? Did she have it in her to do it? The woman was insane, certainly, and hell bent on killing her. And after that, selling off the antigel to the highest bidder filled up the docket, that or letting the Hierarchy use it at whim. Was that a person who even deserved life? Who deserved mercy?

Nyreen didn’t have time to make up her mind, except to make it even more muddled than before. They reached the doors in an hour, far less time than Nyreen expected. Aria pulled up her tool and typed into it until the door flashed green. After that, she pulled up her command line and spoke. “We’re at the door. Go.”

“Okay.” Nyreen blew out a breath and gripped her pistol tighter as the tool dissipated.

Aria raised her brow. “You ready for this?”

Nyreen shrugged. “I’m gonna have to be.”

Aria stepped closer, into her space. “There’s no ‘have to be.’ You are or you aren’t. And I’m telling you now, you are, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.”

She blinked as the woman stepped back again and pulled out her own pistol. “We only have four sinks after this,” Nyreen reminded her. The woman barely glanced away from the door when she nodded. “That’s thirty two shots between the two of us,” she pressed.

“It’s more than enough.” The steel in Aria voice rang clear as a bell. In that moment, Nyreen believed her.

“Ready…” Aria held up her hand. Nyreen’s shoulders tensed.

Aria dropped her hand in one swift cut and they were off.

It occurred to Nyreen only then, as their steps padded through the basement at a speed she almost didn’t believe, as they heard the shout of frantic commands and gunshots and biotic explosions above their heads, that she had never fought alongside Aria; had never actually seen her in a fight. The only thing she had to go on was legend and rumor, much the same as the day they first met.

As they made their way up the first set of stairs, two figures came into their vision, standing ready at the top, but facing away from them. Aria holstered her gun in one fluid movement and let her arms alight. She thrust her arms forward and with a flick of her wrists, their necks snapped simultaneously. Aria used a pull to move the bodies down the stairs, their limp vessels sailing past Nyreen’s face and out of sight, and re-drew her gun without a backward glance. It was then that Nyreen knew that every rumor about Aria was true.

 _Enough of this, Nyreen. Time to work_.

With a synchronicity she hadn’t known since her military training, they swept through the first floor. Every form that passed their vision collapsed in a single shot. In minutes, they had eliminated six of the potential ten people in the building. It was enough dumb luck to make Nyreen believe in the Spirits her mother always spoke about.

 _Focus_.

She shook her head. As they crept up the second set of stairs to the second floor, a voice rang out clear over the chaos.

“Fucking ignore them! She’s here! Go for the stairs.”

Thundering footsteps clamored their way, getting louder by the second and freezing them in their ascent. Aria glanced back at her, her eyes holding a question as much as a warning. But at the same moment, in the corner of her vision, Nyreen saw a turian man appear at the top of the stairs and fire.

There wasn’t a thought in her head. Not really. She knew every bullet they had was coated in antigel. She knew Aria wouldn’t be quick enough to dodge it. That she wouldn’t be quick enough to notice. And she knew there wouldn’t be enough time to get it out before it was too late.

As the bang rang out, a burst of static warmth pooled at the base of her skull. The room slowed as her senses opened and filled and filtered into her mind in slow motion. Then the warmth in her skull traveled down her spine and through her limbs.

Without a thought in her head, Nyreen holstered her gun and threw herself in front of the Queen of Omega as the bullets ricocheted off a barrier.

Her barrier.

A ragged gasp fell out of her as the energy pulsed through her hands and wavered against the assaulting pressure. She could feel her strength…draining with sustained second. How did Aria do this so effortlessly? _How am_ I _doing this?_ On cue, Aria laid a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder. Nyreen didn’t look, but she nodded and dropped the barrier just as they stopped firing. Aria released a singularity with a snarl and shot each of them once as they twisted and twirled through the air.

Once they had gone still, she turned to look over her shoulder. “I’m guessing that’s new?”

Nyreen couldn’t speak. Her voice was lodged somewhere deep in her chest, refusing to follow orders. Her blood wouldn’t stop pounding in her ears.

“We’ll worry about that later. Don’t do that again.” Aria shook out her shoulders and readjusted to an offensive position. “Let’s go.”

The floor they were on was silent and still. The guns outside had gone quiet, having realized that their distraction had lost its effect. Aria stalked forward, head twitching every way at the slightest movement.

Nyreen felt the creeping feeling of someone watching prickle at the back of her neck as she followed. She gripped her gun tighter and glanced around. By all calculations, Rime was the only one left. It shouldn’t be an issue to finish this. She’d killed people before, for far less. It shouldn’t be difficult. _It shouldn’t make my arms shake like this_.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of moment. She turned and saw Rime staring at her, hands clasped behind her back and standing tall, visible through the doorway to one of the rooms, and deep inside judging by the shadows that danced around her.

“Aria,” she breathed. She flicked her head toward the door. The woman followed her gaze.

Instantly, as if overtaken by some sort of demon, Aria’s face twisted into unrecognizable rage. Her body burst with blue and she charged before Nyreen’s cry of “Wait!” could meet her ears.

Nyreen sprinted after her, but even with her long legs, she was powerless to stop it as she watched Aria materialize into Rime, or rather, the hologram of her. It pixelated out of existence beneath Aria’s body as Nyreen burst past the door frame. Aria turned around with a roar, biotic fire flying out of her finger tips and into the floor. Before she could move again, a net flew out of the shadows and threw her against the adjacent wall. Aria shouted again as she caught her bearings and attempted to move, only to have her cries silenced as electricity raced throughout the net’s fibers.

A strangled gasp escaped Nyreen’s throat. She moved to run for her, to rip her free and –

“Ah, ah, ah.”

The voice froze her in her tracks. Her hand outstretched and immobile, like some sort of spell had fallen over her very being.

“Your new girlfriend is quite the piece of work,” Rime commented, bitterness tainting her façade of casualty.

Nyreen clenched her fist and let it fall to her side, tightening her hold on her pistol in the other hand.

“Now, now.” Rime tsked. Her footsteps echoed through the room until she appeared at Nyreen’s left, a few feet away and next to an edge of the net that held Aria captive. She was smirking, hands still clasped behind her back. “Put the gun down, or I’ll up the voltage until she dies.”

Nyreen snapped her mandibles tight to her face. With a glance at Aria, who looked to be on the south side of conscious, she laid the gun down on the floor.

“Wonderful!” Rime cried, grinning. “See how easy that was?”

“Fuck you.”

Rime cackled. “Ah, I’ve missed you, sugar.”

Nyreen fumed and fought the urge to retort. It was exactly what Rime wanted, the game she wanted to play, and she wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction.

“Did you like my little trick? I know it was only in the beta stages when you left me.” The harsh bitterness was back with a bite, flanging out her voice harshly. She grinned at Aria and then back to her. “I’m surprised you didn’t warn her. Got a soft spot for me after all?”

“Don’t you ever shut up?” Aria asked. Her voice was weak, her head still hanging toward the floor.

Rime’s control slipped, her expression flickering with rage of her own. Her hands fell from their clasped position behind her back, revealing a small box in one. She pressed a button and the electricity of the net lit up the room. Aria screamed and writhed to no avail.

“Enough!” Nyreen shouted, taking one step forward.

Rime released the button and the electricity disappeared. Aria’s body fell limp and still against the net, her chest barely rising.

“What do you want?” Nyreen snapped.

Rime rolled her eyes. “ _You_.” She took a step forward and cocked her eye ridge at her, cold and calculating as they day Nyreen left over a year ago. “But I had hoped to find you…unattached.” She regarded the unconscious woman. “That is clearly not the case.”

“We’re not together. Whatever you think, you’re wrong.”

She scoffed and looked at her again, narrowing her eyes. “So you’ve spent nine months under the Queen of Omega’s wing and haven’t fucked your way to the top?”

Rage bristled under Nyreen’s skin. She felt the energy of it pull at the back of her neck and grow warm, the same as on the stairs. She clamped it down. _Not now, not yet_.

“No. She wouldn’t. I wasn’t good enough for her.”

“I’m sure.” One mandible flicked out, dismissive. But her subvocals were edged with longing and she didn’t tear her eyes away.

“I’m being honest.” Nyreen stepped forward, into her space. “You know I’m a terrible liar. You know better than anyone.”

“Then why did you stay?”

“I got scared.” That much was true, if not for the right reasons. “I didn’t think I could handle what you were doing, what you were asking from me. But I was stupid.”

Rime frowned and shifted from one foot to the other. “I have no reason to believe you.”

“Rime.” She placed her hand on the woman’s forearm. “You know me. Let’s just go. She’ll die soon enough on her own. We can still leave here with our lives.”

For a fraction of a second, it looked like Rime might believe her. Then her face soured, inch by torturous inch, and she stepped back, pulling her arm away.

“No. She taken you from me. The least I can do is return the favor.”

Multiple things happened at once. Rime surged toward Aria’s limp frame, a knife appearing from her sleeve and into her hand. In the same breath, Nyreen released the curling energy at the base of her skull until it enveloped the rest of her body and carried her forward. As she caught the knife mid thrust, she realized that Rime was, in fact, right.

Nyreen belonged to no one but herself.

Nyreen looked into those yellow eyes that used to hold such warmth for her, which now held a fear that was just as familiar, even if she had never seen it in Rime’s eyes.

Rime struggled against the biotic grip, but the hold was infallible.

It was an easy choice. Nyreen let her omniblade take form in her free hand and shoved it through the woman’s chest, never breaking eye contact. Rime’s mouth popped open, a dribble of blood trailing down her chin. Before any sound could leave her retched cavity, Nyreen dragged the molten blade upward, carving a straight line through her chest.

She didn’t wait for the woman’s eyes to go dim before letting her corpse to drop to the floor. She rushed to the pieces of net that were bound to the wall. As the first corner released, the rest followed suit in some sort of mechanical domino effect. Nyreen slid forward to catch Aria’s body in her arms.

“Aria.” She shook her gently. When there was no response, she adjusted so she had one free hand and slapped lightly at the woman’s face with her free one. “Come on, Aria. Wake up.”

Aria’s brow crinkled. Nyreen let out a relieved laugh and rested her hand on the woman’s cheek. Aria raised her hand slowly to cover it with her own.

“What a bitch,” she grumbled, eyes still closed and voice still weaker than Nyreen would like.

“You could say that.” She chuckled and removed her hand from her face to press the release of medigel in Aria’s suit. “Now let’s get you up. I’m not carrying you out of her like some faint hearted damsel in distress.”

“Fuck you,” Aria groused, sitting up on her own. “Let’s see you get electrocuted and still be ready to go.”

Nyreen smirked and Aria returned it, and Nyreen decided it would be in poor taste right then to point out that Aria had done exactly that when they first met.

After all, now they had time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, when writing this chapter, I realized that Nyreen was a biotic, which I had definitely *not* included earlier on, and I didn't think the retcon would work as well with the story I was trying to tell, so, ta-da! Also, I've developed a hardcore HC that Nyreen is basically ultimate rogue/liar at this point, so it was fun to have that in play when she killed Rime.
> 
> ANYWAY, enough rambling. Thank you for reading! <3


	5. Stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically an epilogue, buuut, here it is. Short, sweet, and to the point ^_^

Nyreen held the wrapped parcel tighter as she knocked on the door. For a horrible moment, there was only silence. She took a breath and raised her hand to knock again.

“Come in.”

Her fist stopped before it hit the door and dropped slowly to opening mechanism as it flashed green. After a second, the door slid open. Inside, Aria stood facing her counter with her back turned to the door. She was still wearing her black “work” outfit, as Nyreen had come to think of it. She stepped inside in silence, allowing the door to close behind her and flash red again.

“You know, you really should look before just letting anyone in here. I could have been here to attack you.”

“Only four people know that this place exists.” She looked at her over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “And only one of them is stupid enough to come here.”

Nyreen huffed. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Aria turned around fully, wiping her fingers on a rag. Behind her, a yulatta was cut in neat slices. She nodded to the package. “What’s that?”

“Oh.” Nyreen swallowed and stepped forward holding it out, suddenly remembering why she was there. “Uh, for you.”

Aria gave her a skeptical look as she took the package and began ripping apart the brown paper that covered it. It had been a few days since they’d talked. Things had been a bit of a whirlwind after Rimeria was killed. They found her ship in port that following day and used it to track down the last store of antigel. Once that had been destroyed in its entirety, at Nyreen’s non-negotiable insistence, they had returned to Omega for R&R and reorganization. Aria had been busy doing Queen of Omega things and Nyreen had been busy figuring out where the fuck to go from there.

In the end, she had decided this was definitely the first step, one way or another.

Aria lifted the flaps on the cardboard box and lifted out a white, leather jacket with one hand. Her mouth opened, only slightly. She looked from it and back to Nyreen.

She smirked. “Well try it on.”

Aria frowned, but followed instructions for once. She placed the box on the counter and unfurled the white leather jacket in its full length. After letting her eyes roam for a moment, she slipped both sleeves on in one swift move, followed by pulling it straight at the lapels with both hands.

It fit her like a glove. The white contrasted against her purple skin brilliantly, making the sharp features of her face stand out, fierce and lovely all at once. And in the same vain, the white matched with the black well enough to blend in and keep the attention from lingering on her body too long. No matter where Nyreen looked, her gaze always found its way back to those brilliant, violet eyes.

Which now bored into her own, unblinking and void of any emotion.

“Well, I’m glad it fits. I hope you like it.” Aria remained the same. Nyreen fidgeted. “Right. I’ll just, uh, I’ll be going now.”

She hesitated for a moment, but when it was clear that Aria had no intention of moving or speaking or responding in any way, she turned and palmed the door open. The hallway revealed itself and Nyreen took a step to go –

“Why didn’t you leave?”

Nyreen turned around, frowning. “What?”

“You knew as soon as you saved Ufen that you had exposed yourself. No one else could have known how to stop it. You put yourself at risk, but you could have fled. Why didn’t you?”

Nyreen’s throat felt like sandpaper. She shifted from one foot to the other. “I wanted to stay.”

Aria’s face remained unchanged. She stepped toward her. “Why?”

“I made friends. I was able to help–”

“That’s not it.” Aria stopped in front of her, their faces mere inches apart. “Why did you stay?”

Even looking down on her, Nyreen felt small. The silence weighed against her chest. It was like drowning; except all the air you need is standing right in front you, close enough to touch.

“Because of you.”

For a moment, neither of them breathed.

Simultaneously, their lips collided. The kiss was rough and strange. Aria’s lips were soft even in their insistence, even as they parted to let Nyreen’s tongue explore and envelop. Their biotics sparked against each other as their fields collided, which only served to heighten the heat of it. Aria snaked her hands around her hips, scraping her nails along the sensitive skin there. Nyreen moaned into her mouth and cupped the woman’s face, pulling her still closer. She nipped at the woman’s lower lip, careful not to draw blood. Barely.

Aria broke away, panting, and leaned her forehead against Nyreen’s.

Nyreen’s chest felt like it was barely containing her pounding heart. She closed her eyes and pulled the woman closer until they were flush against each other.

Aria moved her hands up to grab her face and stole another kiss, soft and insistent and somehow warmer than before, that left Nyreen breathless and wanting.

“Stay,” she panted.

Nyreen only nodded, and let the woman lead her further into the apartment as the door closed and flashed red behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh, that's it! Now the badass biotic babes of Omega are togevverrrr :D 
> 
> Buggirl, I truly loved every second of writing this, even that parts that drove me crazy trying to figure out what happened next. I'm terribly sorry I didn't get to any of your other pairings for treats, but this things (along with RL), really did get away from me. In any event, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it! 
> 
> Thank you again to anyone with enough love and aptience in their heart to read this. I really appreciate the fact that you existttt <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You really are the kindest, most wonderful person. Any comments/kudos/what-have-you's are cherished and appreciated <3


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